Anna Evans describes imagination as the basis of a person’s interpretive tool kit.
In childhood and adolescence, especially, the nurturing and flexing of imagination can be a critical part of well-rounded educational development. Since 2006, the Bellingham Arts Academy for Youth — better known as BAAY — has been on the forefront of arts education, offering theatre, dance, music, choir, and visual arts courses for children ages 5 to 18.
The nonprofit serves about 1,500 children annually and does so in an incredibly equitable way: last year, BAAY offered the equivalent of around $68,000 in tuition waivers and discounts. But Evans, BAAY’s development director, knows BAAY can’t accomplish their mission alone.
That’s why Peoples Bank is proud to award BAAY the 2024 Peoples Choice Grant, a $10,000 project-specific award to a worthy community nonprofit. An online voting process by the public resulted in BAAY being chosen from among 10 finalists.
“We definitely couldn’t do what we do without support from our community,” Evans says. “The support of an organization like Peoples just means so much. We’re really grateful and humbled to be receiving this grant.”
“Our annual Impact Grant program is a great reminder of how many truly deserving organizations are making a difference every day,” said Andy Riddell, Peoples Bank Chief Lending Officer. “We were overwhelmed with the number of applications we received this year and thrilled to be able to support such worthy causes.”
The Impact Grant program was launched in 2017 to help fund a specific project, use, or identified purpose that will have a long-lasting, positive impact on the community. The winner selected for the $25,000 grant this year was Alatheia Therapeutic Riding Center located in Wenatchee, WA.
All the World’s a Stage
BAAY will use its $10,000 grant to install a new stage at its downtown Bellingham home. Its current stage was installed in 2007 and is showing its age.
“When you’ve got 30 kids jumping and dancing on a wooden platform for over 20 years, that really creates some wear and tear,” says Evans.
The new stage will be a modular, aluminum-based system that offers several advantages, aside from being a safe surface for children to dance, jump, sing, and shout. In addition to providing better access for mobility-impaired students, the stage will be moveable. This will allow staff to reconfigure it for various programs, and even transport it off-site for outdoor performances.
“It will allow us a lot more creative flexibility,” Evans says. “It’s also very durable. We look at this as an investment in BAAY’s future.”
Critical Skill-Building
BAAY is probably best known for its musicals, and there have been many. In fact, Evans estimates BAAY has put on over 400 musical productions since its founding.
And having dozens of children onstage executing complicated choreography while singing and remembering lines is no small feat, she adds. Musical theatre requires concentration, responsibility, confidence, and problem solving, while also providing a sense of community building.
“These children support each other,” says Evans. “They’re engaged in a common goal. You look at the kinds of connections they make with one another — the ways they all pull together to create something that’s bigger than any of them — that is a basic skill set for life. You want that in your student body, in your employees when they get out into the workforce; you want that in community members, when they’re all adults and making a community on their own.”
Providing a place to learn these skills outside of a school environment, Evans adds, is also important in a time when arts funding is often among the first cuts a district makes when budgets run lean. And the younger a child is, the more likely they may be to have had limited in-school opportunities with the arts.
“We hear, over and over again, that BAAY is often the first — if not only — formal arts instruction kids have access to until they hit middle school,” Evans says. “We’re really trying to ensure that this experience is available to children, as much as we’re able.”
Fortunately, BAAY also runs after-school enrichment programs, partnering with Parent Teacher Associations in each district to provide tailor-made programming. Some PTAs also help fund the programs, Evans says, while Title One schools receive federal funding. An ArtsWA grant also helps BAAY with its enrichment programming.
With a similar goal in mind, Peoples Bank is also a strong supporter of the arts and education. “We are so excited to be able to award BAAY with our annual Peoples Choice Grant,” says Kamyar Monsef, Peoples Bank Chief Retail Banking Officer. “With over 1,000 votes, we were amazed by the public turnout for voting this year. We are proud to be helping out an organization that is obviously so well loved by its community.”
Upcoming Plans
BAAY will round out its 2024 schedule with weekend musical productions of Annie Jr., Elf, and Shrek.
Annie Jr. runs November 2 through Nov. 24, while Elf runs Nov. 15 through Nov. 24. Shrek runs December 6 through Dec. 22. BAAY is currently figuring out the logistics of their new stage, with a goal for construction in early January during the organization’s winter performance break.
With a revitalized stage, BAAY will continue to foster the imaginations of Whatcom County children for years to come.
“Helping children develop their imaginations enables them to approach the world in more creative and engaged ways throughout their lives,” says Evans. “We really believe arts education is for everybody, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure kids have access to it.”
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